Monday, April 27, 2009
Closed Blogs!
So I must admit that I rarely go blog surfing. It's not that I don't care, but I just rarely have the time. That said, I clicked on a few of the "friends" below and found that a good chuck of them are open to invitees only. So I pose this question to you all: is it really necessary to close our blogs to members only? I can think of some cases where that would be necessary--perhaps when someone is a public figure and wants to keep some information private or perhaps to keep information out of the hands of other person who who is targeting their blog for whatever reason (i.e. a bully at school or some other stalker). But is it really necessary for 99% of us? Tell me what you think? If you don't respond, maybe I'll block you from being able to read this blog in the future! :)
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13 comments:
I think blog are nice but also have a tone of danger to predators of children. I hear of predators using blogs to find out about them. I am afraid I like the idea of invitees. I can also see robbers finding out about families and their financial situation by watching what and where they go. Expensive trips mean nice home and accessories.
So my vote is by invite.
I see the concern, but it seems like that could be easily alleviated by watching what one posts in terms of timing and content. I'd also suggest keeping the blog non-published so search engines can't find it, and not getting too specific in terms of where you live. But if you make signing in necessary its blocks a lot of good people from reading your blog. If you are a predator, you wouldn't go to a blog to find children. You'd go to a chat room or some other place where you could actually interact with kids. After all, think of the millions of pictures and blogs about people and their families. Perhaps others disagree. Oh, and one last thing, I like to put site meters on blogs so I can track visitors. In theory if I had some problem, the site meter would help me to identify the stalker.
mds - I appreciate the thoughts, and I can see both sides of the argument. We decided to go private because we had strangers leaving wacky comments on our blog. There are just some crazy people out there, and since it is our private lives about which we're talking, I choose to limit that to friends and family we know and trust.
I agree that it does stop a lot of good people from reading the blog- and a lot of people don't want to bother to log on to a blog, so they don't read it. But we still have a few faithful readers. :) I'll have to send you an invite so you guys can see ours!
@Jenny. That is strange. Did you moderate comments and then find that strangers were posting comments or did you have it set up to just post all comments? Either way, sorry to hear you had some wackos. Hopefully we won't have that problem. Have others had similar situations? I kind of feel like we're in a new open world where we just have to be used to being more open--unless of course there are security issue (such as Jenny seems to have had). Of course I guess we don't have to be that open--thus the ability to make blogs and Facebook open to "friends" only. Speaking of open: I recently signed up for Twitter...it is really strange having complete strangers "follow" your tweets on Twitter. It is definitely an open forum!
Mark, I agree whole heartedly. My feelings are why have a blog if you are going to privatize it? Though I see where other posters are coming from, statistically speaking, the odds of someone targeting you through your blog are slim to none. Most criminals are not very intelligent and most acts of crime are committed because it's convienient. There really are not like the serial stalker/killer you see on TV or read about in books. They are generally poorly educated, familar with the prison system, and are not going to take the time to stalk you through a blog. What are the chances of one even finding your blog through the huge morass of blogs? Honestly, I've clicked through tons of blogs from friends links, and they are all pretty much the same AND really boring unless you know the people. The facts are that most of us are more in danger from the people we know and love (approx. 90% of violent crime us committed by someone close to you, likely a family member) or from just leaving your house unlocked. I think this type of fear is evidence of the skewed perspective the media gives us.
Granted, I did have wacky posts on my blog at one point, but I changed my settings so no search engines will crawl my blog, all comments are moderated, and I have site meter which I check regularly for weird patterns.
My two cents from all my work and studying human behaviors.
Thanks for the support Dani--the validation is especially nice coming from someone with a Ph.D. in psychology. I guess we just need someone with a police background to comment and contradict us! :-)
For what it's worth, I won't think less of anyone for deciding to go private with their blog if that is what helps them sleep at night.
I went private because my sister-in-law after posting a picture of her six year daughter in her tutu had 26 hits in two hours. With child pornography as bad as it is and it is really bad, I would rather be safe then sorry.
Hi Becky, thanks for your comment. Not sure why you sister-in-law would get so many hits unless her blog was listed. A lot of people don't realize it, but you can unlist your blog so search engines won't crawl it (at least that's my understanding of it). If you were to search for my name or my kids' names you wouldn't find this blog because it's not listed.
For those wondering how to do it, here's how:
-Click Customize at the top right after logging in.
-Click on the Settings tab
-Look at the Basic tab
-Select "no" on listing your blog and "no" to let search engines find your blog.
I agree blogs can have risks. I think the risks are low, however, if you take appropriate actions. My suggestions are:
-Don't list your blog
-Don't include details on where you live (avoid school names and other giveaways that would allow someone to know exactly where you live)
-Don't put anything that is super sensitive on your site
-Put a site meter on your site
-Don't use your full name on your blog, try to stick to first names (might not be necessary, but that is my preference)
Btw, another "unwise" thing that people do, is put the name of their kid on their car (usually it's referencing their kid's sports or cheerleading team or something like that; e.g. Johnny #32 Football). People do the same thing with signs in their front yard (maybe it's a Texas thing). What an easy way to let someone fool you or your kid into thinking that they know them.
Unfortunately we live in a sick and twisted world. We need to be careful...while trying not to be paranoid.
Btw, refer to my earlier comment if you choose to keep your blog private. At the end of the day, it's your prerogative. Whatever helps you sleep at night is fine by me!
For what it's worth, for those of you who know me well, and knew what I did in DC, you know that I'm a kind of paranoid guy...and tend to be pretty caution when it comes to things like this! But I'm sticking to a public, non-listed blog...for now at least.
I've decided not to worry about it. Humans are notoriously bad at assessing threats and I think the paranoia about stalkers is one of those places where we can worry too much. If you have actual evidence to indicate there is trouble afoot then of course take precaution, but in general I just don't see what harm posting boring details of my life is going to do. I obviously don't post facts about where I live or my SSN or anything and I'll call that good.
Although I will say that your blog will never come up in my RSS feed reader. Did you block me? Do you think I'm a stalker or something? :-)
RSS reader isn't working, eh. That's a bummer. Are you a Google Reader user? Mine works just fine. Btw, thanks for the comments!
I don't think it is necessary. Our blog remains open to all who care to read.
Also Google Reader is a great tool for skimming quickly through blog posts in one convenient location.
I totally agree. And thanks for the info about how to unlist my blog. Next question--what's a good site meter that will help me track things and see any weird patterns? Any advice?
I find that Sitemeter.com works pretty well. You can see how people are accessing the site, where they are coming from, etc. (it's free, although I think they also have a professional version you can pay for). Google Analytics might do the same thing, but I am less familiar with it. Good luck!
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